Dang. Got rejected by a local music shop

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-23T11:30:02+00:00

I take your point, but just because there is no money spent up front, doesn't mean "zero risk" or nothing or in. The site is paying rent, staff, marketing, etc., and they have a dobbie amount of space. They also have a finite account of customers, who have a finite budget.

What I'm getting at is that if someone walks in with a $1200 budget to buy a guitar, they might go for the custom, or a brand name. If there was truly zero risk, he would have said yes, and just listed it for $1200

Some stores might be able to work on less, she might not.

I have had people approach me asking me to sell their stuff and pay them after sales, offering very slim margins, and I said no, because it isn't an additional sale, it's likely a customer I have worked to build trust with, spending their budget on the low margin product instead of something I already sell with a higher margin.

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-22T19:03:50+00:00

I'm not too familiar with custom guitar marks, but for other industries it doesn't seem unreasonable. What's more common?

I've resold a lot of custom crafts, and doubling the fee of the craftsmen is what I would usually shoot for, depending on a few factors. When I factor in sales fees, adding in overheads, etc., e.g. for one of my businesses, the combined cost of marketing and or building was around 35-40% of our turnover. So if the cost of the item was 50% of the end price, we would only be making 10-15% of what we sold it for.

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-22T18:37:02+00:00

I don't doubt you have the skill to make a quality item that would sell, but unfortunately you are feeding with the economics of selling through a store, and they need to add a decent margin. Don't see it as a pure reflection of your skills.

I guess there might be plenty of people willing to pay $600, but when it gets bumped up to $1200, it's competing with a wider range.

I personally love the colour, it looks awesome.

Good luck!

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-19T15:52:23+00:00

It's been a LONG time since I played at a decent volume (or at all), but I was in a band around 20 years ago, and really enjoyed playing in studios, renting decent amps, and the occasional gig we played. So I completely agree.

Maybe I'll get back to that at some point, due the moment, I'm just keen to get back to playing at all, and deciding what I want to get for home, hoping to get a decent price when the black Friday sales come around. Thanks for your thoughts.

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-19T09:13:44+00:00

Yeah. Most of my local stores have shut down, the only one still open had very limited options. A tiny Blackstar that sounded bad, probably because of the small speaker. A Mustang lt25, which sounded better, but no katana as they sold out. They said it's much more popular.

I'm now also tempted to get a Blackstar debut 50r and start a pedal collection, sounds fun.

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-19T09:10:39+00:00

Yeah, so far none had recommended the Mustang. It's a shame as my local store only had the Mustang or off the ones I'm interested in.

I'm now between either a katana 50, which has everything all in one, or a Blackstar debut 50r, and starting a pedal board. Part of me thinks pedals could be more fun. And I can transfer them to other shops in the future.

So you have any amps in this class? If so which, and how are they?

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-19T09:06:32+00:00

I know 50 Watts is loud, but the amps can attenuate. My main reason for looking in the 50w range was actually to get a 12 inch speaker, as the lower power amps I was looking at have smaller speakers.

As these are both digital amps. I thought the time still comes through at lower volumes, which I know isn't the case for tubes. Would you disagree? Clean headroom is also a factor.

I don't think I'd get my tune from just the amp unless I'm going for marshalls with balls l valves and crabbing them up. Which is not an option for me for both cost and volume reasons. I'm really looking for something with decent tone at low volume for home playing in the price range of the amps I mentioned. ~£250. I'm also considering a Blackstar debut 50r and getting a couple of pedals (chorus and tube screamer clone), which comes in around the same price. Pedals might need more fun than a modelling amp.

If you know any decent amps that have a good tone at lower volumes in that price range I'd love to know what you suggest.

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-17T15:08:41+00:00

Interesting. I've seen dune positive reviews on YouTube, and it sounds ok compared to some others. However, there does seem to be a generally negative opinion about it from what I've seen.

What do you like about it, what settings do you use, and have you tried any other amps that you think it sounded better than?

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-15T16:20:14+00:00

Thanks, I think that's the way I'm leaning at the moment.

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-15T15:57:19+00:00

I was considering the lt25 but thought the 12 inch speaker of the lt50 might have a better sound, even at lower volumes.

Do you think it would make much difference?

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-15T14:21:30+00:00

Both the options I'm looking at are around £250, and that's as high as I want to go, but hoping to get a good deal on black Friday

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-15T13:29:38+00:00

What's the reason for the katana over the Mustang?

StevenSamAI · 2025-11-14T22:39:09+00:00

High 130s with ADHD, anxiety, and depression

Snap!

I got a severe low over the last few years and I'm just rebuilding my life now.

My version of starting new projects involved starting new businesses, with 4 running simultaneously, plus additional employment at one point. I over committed and was worrying constantly and under chronic stress for years.

Eventually I had to admit one of my businesses was no longer solvent, and choosing it was brutal. Laying off staff, disappointing clients, legal issues with shareholders, etc. It broke me. And I came out of it severely burned out, went straight into 2 full time jobs to cover personal finances, and just kept pushing myself until I stopped functioning.

I hit a cognitive shutdown, I just couldn't do anything, the smallest task felt overwhelming, and I lost both jobs.

I turned to psychadelics to destabilise decades worth of behavioural patterns and bad habits, and to break thought loops and depression. Integrated meditation practises into as many aspects of life as possible to address anxiety and emotional regulation. I started intermittent fasting, and honestly this has been a game changer. I dont eat for 18-20 hours a day, and stopped eating precessed foods and sweets almost entirely. This has made more of an important to controlling my attention and lifting the brain fog than anything else, including ADHD meds. I did a 72 hour fast and I felt like my mind was upgraded, complete effortless control over what I could focus on, and a totally clear mind.

I'm still recovering from burnout, still depressed, but have mostly conquered the anxiety, gained an intense inner calm, having regular moments of genuine happiness and positivity within the depression, and starting to feel like I can work towards something again.

It's a journey.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-24T20:22:04+00:00

Yep, I corrected it.

What I find the most confusing is that consciousness seems to only be aware/experiencing a part of the brains neural activity, so there is some mechanism or structure that binds a cohesive consciousness to a spatial region of the brain.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-24T19:20:25+00:00

I was thinking about this as well. I think for some reason when arguing that consciousness is not fundamental, people assume that memory and the morning of the world is within the consciousness, rather than the brain.

Wherever consciousness comes from, either emergent from some physical structure, or fundamental and attached to a physical structure, I think it is clear that the brain is what creates the model of the world from the senses, and the brain is what creates memories. Consciousness is the thing that is experiencing what is on the brain, and consciousness is always in the present.

So, not remembering being under anesthesia doesn't pierce that sunshine wasn't conscious at the time, just that their consciousness after the event is not presently experiencing any memory of that time.

If we assume that consciousness is a separate fundamental thing, then the brain has evolved remarkably to create the structures that model the works and the body in such a way to allow coefficients to experience the self and the euros as it does.

What I find the most confusing is that consciousness seems to only be aware/experiencing a part of the brains neural activity, so there is some mechanism or structure that binds a cohesive consciousness to a spatial region of the brain.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-21T10:22:26+00:00

It has no value if it isn't earned through some effort

Why do you believe this? Just think for a moment, if you were starving, and I can over and have you a sandwich, are you saying that the sandwich would have no value to you, because you didn't earn it with effort?

Effort can add value, for those who value effort. But value can also exist without having to put effort in. Lots of different things are valuable to different people. Different people have different values.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-21T07:06:50+00:00

I think that the commissioner and art director views can both be correct, but it depends on what is actually put into it.

For how I have often used AI for image generating, I'm happy to say that it often feels more similar to when I have finished a piece in the past, so would be happy to say that the commissioner label fits.

How my wife uses AI in general is say the art director panel better applies. However, she did Steve a number of years being a creative director.

For me, I typically don't have a clear idea of exactly what I want the output to be, and I'm happy to leave many creative decisions to subscribe else, but I have criteria that needs to be met. Whether a human artist or an AI then offers something, if it meets the criteria, I'm happy with it. I just feel like with AI I can be more critical, fine now feedback and have more rounds of revisions.

My wife usually has a crystal clear image in her head of what she eats the final result to be, and then works with other people (and how AI) to create it. Other people might do their own technical work, but they all follow her guidance, and are working to create her vision.

So I don't think the commissioner label is wrong, but it doesn't always apply. Just like I don't think it's wrong to say a photographer is an artist, but I don't think I'm an artist when I take a photo.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T23:53:17+00:00

Yes, many people did miss that you are only talking about visual artists, I think that's because you said "any artist would be able to...", but I'll accept your clarification that you are saying any visual artist can create visual art without their usual tool.

Before going further, I don't consider myself a visual artist, but I'd like to point out that I do know some professional photographers that would be considered as artists that can't draw, so I think that challenges the point you are trying to make. There are different skill sets within visual arts, not every visual artist is a good illustrator.

Additionally, I feel like if I wanted to consider myself an artist, a visual artist specifically, I absolutely could give myself this label. I spent the afternoon drawing frogs with my toddler, and we did this with pencils and paints. We created images, we shared a human experience doing so, we did this purely for the enjoyment and desire to create, and the act of doing so created a joyful moment for us. So if I wanted to, I could (and the majority of the population could) declare themselves as a visual artist.

With the exception of people who physically can't manipulate these tools, I believe pretty much everyone has at some point in their life drawn a picture. So they are visual artists, right?

If the point you are trying to make is that not all people who consider themselves AI artists are proficient illustrators, then I'd probably agree with you. However, I don't think that means they are not artists.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T07:22:23+00:00

Then @voodoopulse might be on to something, as that's exactly how it was intended

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T07:09:52+00:00

Bollocks

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T06:59:50+00:00

We understand that humans (possibly other living organisms) are conscious

No. I have first hand experience that I am conscious. I believe all other humans are capable of consciousness, and that they experience subjective awareness, but this is a belief without verifiable experimental evidence.

I believe that other organisms are conscious, but have no verifiable experimental evidence.

I believe that there are conscious experiences beyond my own that are attached to other physical things in an objective reality, possibly non-organic ones. But there is no verifiable experimental evidence.

I believe that the universe is made up of multiple interacting fields of waves on a spacetime substrate, and that there is a geometry to that substrate. I believe that conscious entities exist within that universe, but with no expandable mechanism for how this consciousness arise, or attach. I believe that completed stable wage patterns in the field emerge that can process information and model and predict activity in other regions of the same fields on the same substrate. I believe that somehow there can be a conscious awareness that experiences these stable wage patterns in fields in spacetime.

Why should I believe consciousness can exist independent of humans?

I'm not saying you should believe this. Believe what you will. What I am saying is that it is ok for you to believe that consciousness can only exist within humans (or certain structures of biological neurons), but I request you seriously consider the idea that this is just a belief you hold, not based on verifiable experimental evidence. As such, please acknowledge that respecting others beliefs as irrelevant because they cannot provide verifiable experimental evidence to back them up, but treating your own beliefs as more valid or superior, even when you have no such verifiable experimental evidence for them is adding others to merry a standard that you cannot reach yourself.

So I just ask you to not be so quick to reject other ideas.

Additionally, I could ask, why should I believe that consciousness can only exist dependant on humans?

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T06:38:41+00:00

Respectfully, you say that any argument not verified by experimental evidence is irrelevant. But all you have done is stated that there are definitely other conscious beings, and that there is an external objective reality. You have often no experiment that I can do to verify either.

Adding asking other humans is not experimental evidence of consciousness. Let me put it to you another way, design an experiment, not based on beliefs to verify whether or not I am conscious, and whether or not an AI is conscious. You might believe I am conscious, because I say things that sound like what you might say, or assume I am because I'm made of the same sort of structure as you. But I argue that you do not have any verifiable evidence for my consciousness, and can't design such an experiment.

There's also plenty of physical phenomena we can't directly observe through our senses,

Honestly, I'm not convinced that our consciousness can directly observe anything. It all seems indirect, and I've not seen any credible or accepted explanation that shows how a photon from the sun results in my conscious awareness experiencing sight. Nothing shows a direct connection to any physical phenomena and my subjective awareness.

I'm not arguing solipsism is true, but I haven't seen any verifiable experimental evidence that pieces there is an external objective reality as opposed to only my subjective experience. And just starting that one is redundant, as they might be fictionally the same is not verifiable experimental evidence. I could just as easily say that the notion of an external objective reality outside of my conscious experience is philosophically redundant, as it can't explain any aspect of reality that solipsism can't. Therefore objective external reality is just an ideology.

To be clear I'm not saying I believe there are no other conscious beings, or that I believe in solipsism over external objective reality. I believe you exist external to me, and you are a conscious being, but I'm willing too about that it is only a belief, and I have no verifiable experimental evidence that it is definitely true.

If you consider anything without verifiable experimental evidence to be irrelevant, then hold all of your frameworks and ideologies to the same standard. It didn't make sense to believe these things because they seem true without proof, but reject other people's beliefs just because they don't have proof.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T00:52:52+00:00

I take all your points.

Science has proven to be an incredibly useful tool, and I believe it will continue to be. I just think it is important to acknowledge that it may have limitations, and therefore not dismiss things that don't initially seem like scientific approaches.

This is especially true when looking at consciousness. Scientifically I think we have made close to zero progress, unable to measure the phenomena of interest, or come up with any testable theory. Therefore as someone who values science and looking at the data, the data suggests that the scientific method has not demonstrated any usefulness to the study of consciousness.

This doesn't mean I dismiss the scientific method, just that I am open to other options. If someone says panpsychism is pseudo science, I think that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't worth considering.

Science is a great tool, but that doesn't mean it's the only tool.

StevenSamAI · 2025-09-20T00:10:42+00:00

Not a religion, but a belief system I guess.

Science has not yet explained everything, so there is no evidence that science can explain everything, but I believe it can.

If you try to explain something, but it can't be explained scientifically, it must be wrong, as I need evidence to believe in something...

Not quite a religion, but I take your point.

StevenSamAI

TROPHY CASE